Optical Drive on the iSight G5 Model

Please-does anyone know of any site(s) that show how to change the optical drive of the iSight Mac? I'm specifically interested in seeing a picture with connections to the drive. I'm putting together an iSight computer and there is a wire that I think may go to the optical drive which is labeled on the mother board as temp. 2. I want to find out whether this connector goes from the mother board to the optical drive and where else it may go. I'm hoping a site will show the optical drive and all of its connections as seen from the front. There is a French article that shows how to fix an iSight but I cannot find it. I know about Jim Warholic and Bad Caps and others that show how to change the HD and the Japanese sites that actually do not show the iSight version.

tintinlad:
In another post I had asked for this website: http://macboostfr.free.fr/?p=196 that you just posted.
I read through it before and I thought I had saved it but no one knew about it or mentioned it until you just did. Of all of the publications dealing with the iSight, I think this is the best one. The photos are quite good and the limited amount of writing that I have interpreted is also quite good. If there ever were a reference article about the iSight, this is it. Thank you very much.
I have taken it apart and changed only three capacitors on the main board/mother board that I thought seemed defective but unfortunately when I put everything together again, the same screen came up as before. I get a series of horizontal lines through out the whole monitor and the Apple logo comes up with two broken up Apple logos on each side of it and the spinning wheel which eventually freezes.
There are two other boards: one covered with black plastic and the other square and uncovered. They both seem good but who knows. It was an interesting experiment and I learned a lot but it didn't work out yet.
I will next try to transfer data from the HD drive to another drive although I have backed up everything via Time Machine to an external HD and I am now trying to see what I have saved. I hope the latest is on this external HD via Time Machine. Hope I haven't lost too much if anything.

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HT2801 Why is there no optical drive in the iMAC

I am curious as to what the thought process was with not fitting an optical drive to the new iMAC. I believe this was a financial choice, ensuring that the customer pays the already over priced cost for the main equipment. Then as the equipment really isn't fit for purpose it then forces the customer to pay more at an overly high rate for peripherals that should be included.
This is the equivalent of buying a car and finding that it doesn't have a windscreen. You can still drive the car, but it's not all that usefull really.
The only problem with these forums is that you never get the manufacturers actually participating. They take your money but are not prepared to either capitulate to their error, or defend their standpoint.
I purchased a 13' MAC Book Pro Retina, and am very pleased with it. I own an iPhone and an iPad Mini. So I am not an Apple antichrist! I think that those in the silver tower of power have forgotten who keeps them in that tower and provides them with their end of year bonuses etc, it's us...the customer! We are looking after you Apple, how about looking after us for a change.

I think that you caon only take form over function so far. I think that this direction that both Apple and Microsoft are taking is towards an "everything is in the cloud" position. This is all very well until you find that using Word will cost you x pence or that you have to then pay for access to iMovie and edit your movies in the cloud. It is human nature to be averse to change and if that change is too steep a curve then it is also human nature to push back. I have read a lot of threads that are asking this very same question and the only people that don't seem to be joining in hte discussion is Apple themselves and that is a pity really. It would be nice to hear what they have to say on this subject and to understand the rational behind it.

Why is apple moving away from the optical drive with the new Macbook Pro?

Now I know that they are still selling the Macbook Pro's with the optical drive, but why abandond the drive in the newest model? CD's, DVD's, and Blue-ray's are still big parts of our lives, why push people to swithch over to digital? I do not want to go out of my way to buy digital copies of my favorite movies, softwares, and games when apple stops selling the incase optical drive, nor do think it's practical to carry around an external drive?
Now I know this is a harder question to answer, but why does it make the product better? Does this make the product more efficient? Is it more eco friendly? And please, be specific. Thanks.
          - Pappyprops
     P.S. I am not looking for a new computer, I have a 2011 Macbook Pro and love it!

Let me take your specific questions in order:
Why abandond the drive in the newest model?
     There are a couple of reasons - I should note that I do not agree with them, just stating them. They want to pull more WinDoze 'ultrabook' shoppers over to the Mac line. That's a good thing. The impression is that lighter is better for that market so, they had to lose some weight. Also, Apple obviously believes that 'culturally', we will at some point fail to utilize physical mediums. I can tell you that is never going to happen. Not this year, not in ten years, not in 100 years. Now, before some smartass calls me on my inability to time travel, thus, my answer must be wrong, let me point out the obvious, which is that everything physical has a limit. DVDs do not last forever, but once encoded, they are a solid medium and billions exist. Thumb drives sound great in theory but in practice, despite being able to hold more data, they are no more solid than DVDs and it will be a long, long time before DVDs go away in the marketplace. People want to have physical mediums. Look at the iPad - great for reading books, but every survey shows people prefer actual books. Personally, I do not want to have to have 500 TB of space for all my media, nor do I want a company to have the ability to 'pull the plug' on my media - if it's not physically in my hands, they can do that. Same kind of reason there is opposition to the US healthcare bill; do you feel safer with your information in a folder in an office where the only real fear is fire or safer with your sensitve healthcare information on a drive somewhere where a hacker can wreak havoc? We are simply more comfortable with touch-and-feel.
Why does it make the product better?
    It doesn't. IMHO. Now, the Retina screen is something better (I questioned this when I compared it to the anti-glare version of the prior incarnation, see prior post) but the SSD, while tiny, is technically safer and more solid for data (no moving parts, etc). But the lack of a DVD drive (I felt they should have gone the other way and provided at least an option for an internal BluRay Superdrive) does not, by itself, make it better. It makes it lighter, not better. For people who have one computer in their home for business and home use, an external drive will now be a must; the kids will want to watch their movies on roadtrips, etc. In my case, clients want DVDs, so an external is now a must for me, unfortunately.
Does this make the product more efficient?
     I can't imagine it does in any way, but I'm not an engineer and, more importantly, I do not have one (yet). However, barring OS issues, loading a DVD vs. loading a movie in iTunes - loading the iTunes movie is faster, but it's obviously not better, since BluRay is much better image quality. Does the speed of the load make it more 'efficient'? That will be argued. I would say it is negligible. It may help airflow not having it in there, it obviously makes it lighter. But that does not automatically equate into more 'efficient'.
You also asked about eco-friendly and frankly, I think these machines are as eco as you can get and can't really be moreseo. MHO. I cannot imagine not having an optical drive makes it (net) any more eco friendly.

On the mac mini 2011 how can I run windows 7 without the optical drive, On the mac mini 2011 how can I run windows 7 without the optical drive

On the mac mini 2011 how can I run windows 7pm bootcamp without an optical drive. I watch lots of football on sop cast and other such windows based programmes but can't work out how to do it.

Actually Windows can be installed and booted from an external drive if the drive is connected eSATA (external SATA), since the drive is treated as if it's an internal HDD. I used the same method previously to dual-boot from 2 different HDD instead of partitioning.
Most PC motherboards come with them as standard so it's pretty much plug and play but I don't recall seeing a recent Mac with eSATA connectivity though, so that might not be an option for you.

Installing second optical drive and the door hangs

This is just an FYI post, have not been able to find anyone else with the exact same problem, but thought I would list in the event of.
I originally installed an internal DVD R/RW Lightscribe drive from LaCie in a Power Mac G4 Dual 1Gig and it worked well! I have since purchased a MacPro and wanted to move the Lightscribe drive into the second optical drive bay. So after installing the drive and attempting to open the tray it was apparent that the door on the case would not allow the tray to open. The front of the Lightscribe tray was too bulky to fit through the opening on the narrower Mac Pro optical drive door.
Well, the folks at Lacie had attached a nameplate to the front of the tray that works fine in other configurations, but on the MacPro the clearance for the tray is narrower and it's bulk would not activate the sliding door properly.
Someone was thinking, because the tray nameplate is detachable with a little effort. I can provide photos if need be.
Tray closes as it should now.

Hi TCherry,
Your situation interests me since I was thinking of doing the same with a previous optical drive from an old G4. I also wanted to add it to my MacPro's 2nd slot.
Are you still willing to supply some pics to see what you did?
Rio.

[HELP],875P LSR ,HOW Can I USE 3 Optical Drives in the MoBO?

I have 1 SATA HDD Drive (Seagate 160G) installed and Have 3 Optical Drives ,Pioneer DVD and Liton CDRW in IDE2 , Plextor CDRW in IDE3 ,but MOBO can't recgnize the PLextor CDRW,WHY???
NEED HELP!!!!!HOW can I USE these 3 Optical Drives the same time?THANK's LOT!

Thanks Everybody!
I changed another IDE Cable and set IDE mode in BIOS : Native , SATA only ,Keep PATA, both channels
then,
Everything is OK!
How silly I am ! I used a bad 80 pin IDE CABLE!

Can the optical drive in the new 13 MBP be removed permanently?

Any idea how much weight that would save?

JoeyR wrote:
The optical drive would save maybe a few ounces (about the weight of a deck of cards). There is very little hardware in the drive components. Should you find yourself in the position of needing support for your machine, you will not be able to run any of the diagnostic tests which require booting from the optical drive. You would also not be able to reinstall the OS should there be a need to do so.
There are reports that Apple Hardware Test has been able to run without install discs in most of the new Macs.
I've certainly been able to do that, but I'm not sure exactly what the magic combination is to do that. I've been holding down D (I think) and it's been working sometimes, but I'm not sure if it has to be held when shutting down or when restarting. I've tried it at various points, and often it just boots into regular OSX.

Replacing the Optical Drive in the MacBook

Is it possible to replace the CD/RW drive in the MacBook with the Superdrive in my PowerPC based Mini?

Hi Tom,
I don't think they are the same "design". From what I've read the drives in our MacBook's are thinner than the previous PPPC models.
There is indeed hope, I've contacted OWC (Other World Computing) and asked them to let me know when they have a model available for the MacBook.
I did this with my old 12" PowerBook because I wanted a "better" spec'd drive than what Apple was offering at the time. I picked up an 8x DL SuperDrive for $120.00.
Swing on by and let them know you are interested in one too.
http://eshop.macsales.com/
Edit: I am not affiliated with OWC, nor do I receive any sort of compensation. I've been very satisfied with their service over the past 4 years.

What optical drive does the G5 iSight use?

My question relates to the G5 iSight model. A friend has given me his to fix since the original drive no longer reads.
What kind of drive can I use? A standard laptop slot loading drive or does it have to be an apple certified Superdrive?
Thanks for your help on this.

If you go to the Apple logo and click About this Mac, then on More Info, then in under Hardware, click on Disk Burning, and it will show what Superdrive was installed - probably the Matshita DVD-R UJ-846.
They are not the most 'sturdy' of items, alledgedly because thay were originally designed for a Macbook (horizontal operation, whereas in the iMac they are asked to work in the vertical position).
Mine failed a few months ago, in as much as it would do everything except burn DVDs. For that I now use an external Samsung Super Writemaster DVD writer that cost the reasonable amount of £27 from Amazon! Works a treat. I saw no good reason to pay up to £200 for a more sophisticated make and model!
Getting an internal Superdrive replaced by an Apple Centre or authorised dealer would cost a lot more.
Your call!

I didn't notice an optical drive on the new iMacs. If this is true then how are customers to insert a dvd from a new peripheral purchased?

Where is the DVD player on the new iMacs?

I'm only guessing but it is no coincidence that Lion and Mountain Lion can only be bought be download from App Store. Apple may well only want to sell this way in the future, via the App Store. So no need for DVD facilities.

Optical drive imac g3/233, what model?

Quel est le modèle de lecteur optique du iMac G3/233 révision A?

Voici une traduction de Google de ce lien vers le français. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_ab.html

(2011 13" Macbook Pro Model 8,1) I want to replace my 320GB HDD and replace it with a 6gb/s 120GB SSD. I also want to replace the optical drive with a 7200RPM HDD 750GB.

I want to use:
The SSD and enclosure to replace the optical drive with the new HDD
So basically, I want to use the SSD in the link above. I want to set this up as either preferrably a fusion drive. If not the smoothest most stable configuration. I have a Macbook Pro Early 2011 13" with 8 GB of ram, 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 320GB HDD.
I want to install the SSD directly to the SATA port where the 320 GB HDD is currently. I then want to install the new HDD, preferrably a name brand 750 GB 7200RPM hard drive where the optical drive is now. I want the storage to work in a way in which the OS, and my most used programs and files get stored on the SSD, and everything else gets stored on the larger hard drive. My most preferred method would be Fusion drive, or a SPAN drive.
I would like to use a Seagate Momentus XT, but I learned that there might be issues with compatability with this. I dont mind using the 3 gb/s 500GB option, but would like to know if it would even be smart to do it. I also have no problem settling for a regular 7200 RPM hard drive.
I have read a bunch of stuff online but I still am not sure if this is even possible. I want my machine to run as fluid as possible so any info would be appreciated.

bump

Putting a SSD in the optical drive bay of a late 2011 MacBook Pro.

I want to put a large Solid State Drive in the optical drive bay of my late 2011 (Model ID 8,2, 2.4 GHZ quad i7, 8 Gigs RAM, SSD boot drive) using the carrier and drive from Other World Computing. The "About This Mac" box shows that the optical drive is 6G so I'm thinking that it should be OK putting a 6G drive in that bay, but OWC says that MacBook Pros have only a 3G optical drive capability. I know this was true on earlier models, but my bay says 6G.   The 6 G SSD's are faster and have a longer warranty. I do pro audio work and want to record to the new drive with speed and reliability. Is there any way to prove that my MBPro will handle 6G? I was told by someone at OWC who looked up my my serial number that it would work, but another tech guy at OWC said they didn't recommend it. I'm thinking that they just issue a blanket "no" answer to cover themselves against people ordering a 6G drive for a machine that wouldn't handle it. Before I order a 6G drive is there a way I can know for sure if it will work?
Many thanks,
Robert

If the computer is correctly identified as 15-inch Late 2011 MacBook Pro, and not an Early 2011 build series,
according to MacTracker database (http://mactracker.ca download application) optical drive interface supports
the same spec as the hard disk drive...
Hard Drive Interface    6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
Optical Drive Interface    6.0 Gbps Serial ATA (SATA)
So should there be an error in identification, that would make a difference. Some Early 2011 models may
have the 3.0 Gbps or 6.0Gbps data rate in the optical drive. All Late 2011 models should be 6.0 Gbps.
Good luck & happy computing!

Location of the optical drive

Does the iMac G5 (iSight) come with an optical drive slot that is located on the left hand side? If not, what are my options?

I take it from your question that there's some reason why having the optical drive on the RH side is a problem. If so, I guess your option would be to purchase an external FireWire or USB 2 optical drive. LaCie drives have been getting good reports online and in computer magazines. I have the d2 Dual Layer version and have been very happy with it. It comes with cords for FireWire 400 and 800 connections as well as a USB 2 cord. Lots of flexibility. The only negative is that the case is large and fairly heavy...so it's not really portable.

How do I rename the 2 optical drives in a mac pro

On the Mac Pro (OSX 10.6.8), using Toast to copy a CD, I often find that the "read" phase assumes I am going to "write" to a disc in the same Superdrive, even though there are two of them. The superdrives both have identical names, so selecting the drive is guesswork.
I've tried quite a few searches on both the Apple forums & Google, to find out if it's possible to rename these two drives (ie, in the same way that Windows allocates a drive letter to each).

Nope.
Once upon a time when ATA busses offered Master and Slave settings you could set one as Master, and Toast would automatically show that as the first optical drive on the list. It all went away once they went to cable select settings on the ATA.
I had/have the SAME issue and it got so thoroughly frustrating that I pulled one of the super-drives, (Pioneer DVR-112) installed it in an external case and stuffed a used $5 DVD-rom drive from Goodwill in the second slot.
(Actually, given how hard it is to find ATA DVD burners, you could do a lot worse than to put one aside for limited use. I'd give anything to get another DVR-112.)

Optical Drive on the iSight G5 Model

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